Winding down...

Here is a photo of the map on my closet door. WE FINALLY DID IT! It has been up in our house since before our 25th anniversary. First in the living room, then in my bedroom. It will be nice to retire it!



Today was the inevitable day back: Unpack. Go through the mail. Make out bills. Take care of laundry. Stop at bank. Make the expected phone calls.

Clean out the rental vehicle and return it. Even though I wasn't a fan of the Mazda CX-9, it was kind of hard saying goodbye. (And even harder getting back into the Ford Explorer and trying to remember where all the controls are!)

Joyce reminded me that we spent more time in the Mazda than we did anywhere else on the trip. She was right about that. Even though, I would never buy one -- it did run great and kept us on the road. Did we mention that we only saw three of those vehicles on our whole trip. We didn't see anyone driving one until we hit the 2300 mile mark! Crazy!

Went on a full walk for the first time in weeks. Have to say I really enjoyed walking the customary route. Even found another golf ball to add to my collection -- a Titleist!

I am posting the link to my Picasa web album of our visit to Hershey, PA tonight!

Trying to think of things we learned along the way.

DAVE's LIST...

I am definitely not as PATIENT as I thought I was (or as my wife knew I never was)!
Driving in big city rush hours is not my idea of fun - especially with a rental car.
The more expensive the hotel, the more likely your room will only have a bed and a tv.
Priceline.com is not always a good deal.
What looks flat and straight on a paper map seldom is.
Don't try to visit historical sites in Ohio on Monday or Tuesday.
I enjoy seeing good puppet shows more than going to museums.
No matter what the hotel's name is -- it's still just a hotel.
Most laundromats are pretty disgusting.
A GPS can take you to places you really don't to go.
You could spend your life in Massachusetts and not see all the museums or famous spots.
West Virginia has strange and unpredictable borders.
Beware of night-time road construction in Massachusetts - it's like driving in a disco light show.
When buying postcards to send to friends and relatives - you should really send them before you get home.
You can buy lobster for 6.99 a pound in New England, but try to find a summer sausage for that price!
Supermarkets that make you get their discount card to take advantage of sale prices are really annoying.
Always opt for the tour with a tour guide at famous landmarks.
Every house should have a piazza. (that's different from pizza)

JOYCE's LIST...

To be added later

Home at Last!

Greetings, friends, family et al!

We arrived home today about 8 p.m. after booking just over 4300 miles and about 2700 photos on our adventure. Cassie was home to greet us with ice cream - what a great treat!



Spent the morning in Bangor with Tim, Jess, and Joshua. Tim and I went fishing in the morning around his home. Wow! was it cold for June - almost July. Temp was 59 degrees but the wind and drizzle made it feel much cooler. Didn't have much luck. Two sunfish and a small bullhead, but it was fun to be out fishing. Have to take my boat over to Lake Neshonoc (sp?) which is only a couple miles down the road from his house. They are heading down to Cincinnati at the end of the week to visit Jess' sister.



We left there about 2 and drove over to Camp Phillip to see Christi for supper. We went into town and ate at Christiano's -- great food there. I had an amazing salad - Christi loves the pasta there. Huge portions. My salad was really a meal. Great to see Christi - had a hard couple weeks with the heat wave in Wisconsin. No air conditioning where she works. She is coming to visit us this weekend.



Left Wautoma about 6:45. Nice to see familiar landmarks and be sleeping in our own bed again!

Blessings to all!

Dave

Eureka! We have found Wisconsin!

Greetings from Bangor, Wisconsin!

Today was the longest driving trek in many a year for Joyce and me. We got into the Mazda before 7 a.m. in Zanesville, Ohio and didn't stop driving until 7 p.m at Tim & Jess's place in Bangor. Keep in mind that includes an hour we gained by crossing from Eastern to Central time.
We just needed to be back in Wisconsin -- away from hotels, motels, and museums -- and seeing familiar faces.

We did make one stop in Columbus at the James Thurber house. I am a big James Thurber fan. I think his writing is hilarious. Here is a photo of me reading from my Thurber Carnival book on the porch of his house at 77 Jefferson Ave in the middle of downtown Columbus.



We also rediscovered an old friend hanging around...



Throughout our travels today, Joyce read to me segments from the book - we laughed a lot. It was hilarious. Our travels took us through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and into Wisconsin up through Beloit and Madison. It was sure exciting to cross the Wisconsin border!

We were so happy to see Tim, Jess & Joshua --



Here's a photo of the happy grandma...



We have traveled over 4100 miles in our little adventure -- still not home yet. Tomorrow we hope to visit Christi at Camp Phillip on the way back to Appleton. We are planning dinner at Christiano's in Wautoma for tomorrow evening.

Joyce says she has kind of forgotten how to drive -- she has been my faithful navigator with maps, atlas, and GPS all along the way. I think she has only driven about 1 1/2 or 2 hours on our trip. But she has been the one who has managed to get us there and back. It has been a great adventure.

We also need to thank all those who prayed for our safe travels and for the Lord for sending his angels to watch over us. We passed another terrible accident today -- a semi and a pickup truck. The pickup was hardly recognizable. A reminder to us all to be ready at any time for the Lord to take us home.

Love to all!

Dave

Hershey, PA to Zanesville, OH

Greetings from Zanesville, Ohio - just down the road from the Zane Grey museum!

This morning we rolled out of bed, enjoyed our breakfast outside of Lebanon, PA, and then headed into Hershey.

We did take time to have a Bible reading and devotion time. No WELS church within a half-hour of our hotel. We talked about visiting a Mennonite church we drove by, but thought that might cause a little stir.



Mr. Hershey was a pretty amazing man from what we could figure out. Stopped at the Hershey Museum. Some of the photos on my Picasa album are from the Museum and some are from the Chocolate World building. Especially check out the Apostolic Clock from the Museum and all the fun Joyce had in "Hershey Heaven."



A couple hours at the Hershey exhibits was enough for us. They have everything there -- malls for shopping, a Six Flags - type amusement park, and more. Everything imaginable you could buy.



From there we hit the road across Pennsylvania. It is a long state with lots of mountains. We traveled through three of them by tunnel. We zipped through West Virginia in about 10 minutes -- they have a really fast speed limit there and are happy to be in Ohio tonite.

Supper was at a Bonanza buffet just over the Ohio border - Dave was a happy camper - salad & chicken wings!

Getting ever closer to home. Hallelujah!

Love to all --

Dave

From Sunnyside to Hershey (or less)...

Greetings!

Had trouble finding a place to stay in Tarrytown last night. Roads are crazy around here after dark and they don't mark streets well in this part of the U.S. They never list the cross streets so you can't tell exactly where you are. Frustrating. Plus last night they had closed the major bridge we had planned to cross because of major accident with a truck loaded with watermelon. Sounds funny, but it wasn't -- at least one person was killed. Lots of accidents today too on our way into Pennsylvania. We always try to say a special prayer before we embark for safe travels each day. The Lord has been very good to us -- watching over two roaming travelers who don't know the roads in this part of our country.



This was the view we woke up to out of our hotel room. Beautiful hotel - we ended up at a Doubletree in Tarrytown. Tarrytown is a gem of a city nestled along the banks of the Hudson River. Many gorgeous estates along the Hudson. We would love to come back and see some of the others sometime.

Really enjoyed our visit to Washington Irving's Sunnyside estate this morning. I had originally thought about skipping this stop because we are kind of "museumed" out. Glad we didn't do that. I had forgotten how important a figure in early American literature Washington Irving was. He was actually the first American to make his living as a writer. He pubished over 40 books and was a best-selling author in Europe before his reputation in America was established. Our guide said he was such an eligible bachelor that Mary Shelley (widow of Percy Bysshe Shelley & author of Frankenstein) chased him all over Europe trying to catch his eye. (Headless horseman & Frankenstein's monster - scary combination!)

He didn't actually settle at Sunnyside until he was 52. Before that he had spent much of life in Europe. He pretty much single-handedly showed the European cultural community that there was hope for "those brash, wild Americans." His estate is embodiment of the Romantic ideals and his house was a pleasure to tour. Not a big fancy house -- even though it did have 10 bedrooms. (He was a bachelor, but took in his five unmarried nieces and his brother Ebenezer!)
Sadly, no photography was allowed inside, but you can get an idea from the photos of the grounds what a wonderful place it was.



Here's a picture of me resting on Irving's piazza.

And here's a photo of Joyce enjoying a stop in one of Sunnyside's shady copses...can you see the little waterfall in the background. All these beautiful shots from Sunnyside are planned to look natural, but were actually designed by Irving to look natural -- the ideal of Romanticism.



Click here for my Irving's Sunnyside web album.

It started as an 11 acre farm and later expanded to 26 acres. He designed the home himself and it shows the influence of his visit to Scotland to visit Sir Walter Scott (the best-selling novelist of the time -- writer of Ivanhoe). It also includes French, Italian, Swiss, Dutch, and Spanish elements. We loved sitting on his piazza and listening to the birds singing. During his time, the railroad put a line right through his property - it still is there today.

Irving was friends with 6 presidents and served as America's ambassador to Spain under a 7th president - Martin Van Buren, a man he had talked into running for president! Our tour guide was excellent and knowledgeable. He pointed out that both literary and political greats were frequent visitors to this house. Presidents along with Napoleon, Charles Dickens, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, and many others were guests at what he originally planned as his summer cottage.

One final note on Sunnyside - we found this little token of home on our way out. I hope you can read what it says... Neenah Foundry!



After Sunnyside, it was time to hit the road again. We traveled out of New York, through New Jersey, and into Pennsylvania. Having never been to NJ, we were really surprised by its mountains and rural look. Pennsylvania, too, is filled with beautiful mountain vistas. We stopped at a Days Inn in Jonestown, PA. It's about 20 minutes away from Hershey - a stop Joyce wanted to make before we worked our way home.

Blessings to you all!

Dave

A Whale of a Tale & Back to New York

Woke up to a second day where you could actually see the sun. Unfortunately the thunderstorms are predicted to roll in soon. Boston weather has not been good to us. Never able to make it downtown to get around and doesn't look like it's going to happen for us.



Today it's on to New Bedford and the Whaling Museum. Check out Joyce as she poses by a life-size example of one of these monsters of the sea!

Before we entered the Whaling Museum, we stopped in the Bethel Chapel which New Bedford whalers attended before they went out to see. Got to see Herman Melville's pew and the cenotaphs on the walls -- cenotaphs is definitely an Honors English word. Made it clear how dangerous a lifestyle whaling actually was. Note that the pulpit which is shaped like a ship is a new addition that was necessitated by Melville's fictional account of what the chapel looked like! It was made popular in a movie and everybody came expecting it to look like that until they finally raised the money to make it happen...funny!

Here is my Picasa Bethel Chapel photo album!

Also took a quick walk around New Bedford's historic district. Still has cobblestones on the street. Saw the Custom House -- architect was the same man who designed the Washington Monument later in his life.



The Whaling Museum has so much in it. You could easily spend a whole day there. Don't know if Joyce made it through the whole place - lots of reading & exhibits. So much artwork and more. Joyce especially like the examples of beautiful scrimshaw.

Check out my Picasa Whaling Museum photo album here!

Leaving New Bedford, we decided to drive through Rhode Island and past all the fancy mansions in Newport. Those are quite the palaces. Here's one example of one of the smaller ones...



Also got a beautiful view of the ocean at Breton State Park. Sadly this is the only ocean photo that turned out.



Our goal was to get back to New York by the end of the day. It was a challenge, but we did it.
We had to drive through a pretty nasty thunderstorm in mid-Connecticut. As we approached New York City, you should have seen the traffic streaming out of the city.

We are staying in Tarrytown tonight (which is a distant suburb of New York City.) Hope to visit Washington Irving's Sunnyside tomorrow before we hit the road into Pennsylvania -- maybe Hershey???

Blessings to all!

Dave

Plimouth Plantation, Mayflower & Tanglewood Marionettes

Today the sunny finally came out! Hurrah!

Enjoyed a wonderful day at Plymouth. Started out with Plymouth Rock -- it is much tinier than I ever expected since nowadays it is but a smaller part of a larger rock that has been parcelled out to all kinds of people and institutions around the U.S.

From there boarded the Mayflower II for a tour. Really cramped quarters for a crew and all those Pilgrims. Pilgrims basically were treated as cargo. Can't image how cramped and smelly it would have been. Some families as large as 8 persons were confined to a "cabin" (actually wood boards) that couldn't have been more than 8 ft by 6 ft. Re-enactors aboard ship answered questions.

Here I am next to the anchor rope - check out how small I look!

You can see more images on my Picasa Mayflower web album!




Next we traveled around town to see old houses, monuments, and other points of interest. I was particularly interested in a visit to Plymouth's Burial Hill which climbs high about the harbor. Here William Bradford and many other Pilgrims are buried. Famous missionary to China Adoniram Judson is also laid to rest there.

You can see more images on my Picasa Plymouth web album!

About lunch time we moved on to Plimouth Plantation. I ate a wonderful turkey dinner in their welcome center while Joyce tried the fish cakes and Boston baked beans. A walking tour of the grounds took several hours. We experienced both an Indian "village" and the Pilgrim settlement with talented re-enacters and craftsman who made it especially meaningful. If you get out here, you can't miss this stop. Wow! Talk about roughing it...

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Had an itchy trigger finger on the camera -- went through three sets of batteries. Will post photos tomorrow. Too tired tonite. We left the hotel at 8:10 am and just got back in the door at 10:30 pm. NOTE: At final count we took over 600 photos yesterday!

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You can see more images on my Picasa Plymouth Plantation web album!

After Plimouth Plantation, we drove down to Falmouth on the south end of Massachusetts for a performance of "The Dragon King" by the Tanglewood Marionettes.




Amazing performance. Beautiful marionettes with a wonderful mixture of rod puppets, some blacklight, some shadow. Afterwards got a backstage tour. Lots more photos. They are heading down to Georgia for the Puppeteers of America convention in a couple weeks.

You can see more images on my Picasa Tanglewood web album!

Also, Joyce found someone with her same taste in shoes - they sat next to each other at the puppet show.



That's all for now!

Blessings!

Dave